King Viswanathan Anand returns home

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Viswanathan Anand is back where it all started: Chennai. Regal splendour and generous jostling marked the arrival of the king of world chess at Anna international airport here on Saturday.

Anand, clad in his trademark blue shirt, was fortunate to come out of a media scrum unscathed. A barricade at the arrival area, however, paid the price for separating the champion and the press.

The raucous welcome party wasn’t for the faint hearted, as photographers, reporters, chess players, administrators, coaches, school students and fans fought with one another for a vantage point to catch a glimpse of a man who has come to epitomise excellence in world chess and class elsewhere. Amidst the mess, Anand remained imperturbable as always.

Being a chess player — a world-class one at that — helps him keep his cool in trying circumstances.

It is an open secret that Anand is a multi-faceted personality: he is a voracious reader, has a passion for astronomy and an eloquent speaker.

Okay… he can also move the pieces on a chessboard competently. One of his unforeseen skills came to the fore at the airport: wrestling. Anand had to literally wrestle his way out of the crowd to go home in single piece.

The maddening crowd — more in tune for a cricketer or a movie star in this country — was a victory for Anand as well as chess in general.

For the first time in a chess party, bouncers, too, made their presence felt. In no other part of the world would such robust pushing be witnessed to welcome a chess champion.

Anand is, perhaps, used to this kind of reception. It is all in the game for him, having not ceded an inch to his rivals in the last four world championships.

World chess body (Fide) vice-president D.V. Sundar and All-India Chess Federation president J.C.D. Prabhakar presented Anand with a giant garland.

A schoolgirl adorned the king with a floral crown, even as folk dancers worked up a sweat to the traditional music of thavil and nadaswaram.

Anand — for whom winning the world title has now become a compelling habit — may not have to fret about arrival at airport and wrestling because there is a possibility that he will play the next world championship in Chennai.